Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts

Dec 17, 2015

Union Government gives in principle approval to Google’s Loon project

12/17/2015
Google’s Loon project
Union Government has given in principle approval to work on Loon project of internet search engine giant Google for providing Internet connectivity by using large balloons.
In his first visit to the country, Google’s newly-appointed chief Sundar Pichai managed to secure support for the company’s ambitious Loon project in the government. Union minister for telecom and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the government was in principle agreeable to pilots of Google’s Project Loon.
After meeting Pichai in New Delhi, Prasad said he had also proposed a partnership with state run BSNL for Project Loon. Under the project Loon, Google has proposed to provide internet connectivity in hard to access areas of the country from balloons floating at a height of 20 km using LTE or 4G technology. Prasad also said that the telecom ministry would help Google in obtaining clearances from civil aviation and the defence ministries for approvals.
 

What is Google’s Loon project?

  • It is Google’s ambitious research and development project that aims at providing low-cost Internet access to rural and remote areas.
  • Under the project, high altitude floating telecom tower balloons are positioned at a height of 20 km, above earth’s surface for transmission of internet services.
  • Each balloon can provide full wireless broadband internet coverage up to an area of 40 km. These balloons are mainly powered though solar panels.
  • These balloons have transceivers which can connect to cell phone networks in order to fill the gaps in their networks especially in remote areas such as mountains and deserts.
  • Google already has successfully tested this technology in New Zealand, California and Brazil.
Apart from Project Loon, Google also has partner with the Common Service Centre (CSC) and Internet Sathi programme (ISP) to expand Internet reach in 3 lakh villages particularly for women training. Google is also focusing on bringing its various products in many more Indian languages.

Oct 4, 2015

Google officially becomes Alphabet Inc.

10/04/2015
Internet Search engine giant Google has officially has converted into new parent company Alphabet Inc. after US markets closed on 2 October 2015.
Company had made legal filing for officially establishing the new parent structure of Alphabet without any changes in their day-to-day operations.
After closing of US markets, shares of Google stock (both Class C and A) were convert into shares of Alphabet stock. In this exchange the tickers will remain unchanged as GOOG and GOOGL respectively.
With this Google’s core flagship business entities encompassing search, YouTube Android will be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Google’s smaller units like the hardware maker Nest, moonshot factory Google X will now set up their own companies under Alphabet Inc.
In August 2015, Google had announced to blow up its corporate structure by forming a new parent company called Alphabet. It wanted to allow its different businesses to operate independently and move faster with each division having its own CEO.

Sep 29, 2015

Google to provide Wi-Fi in 400 Indian railway stations

9/29/2015
Search engine giant Google has announced to provide high-speed public Wi-Fi in 400 Indian railway stations.
To set up public Wi-Fi hotspots, Google is working with the Indian Railways and RailTel, a government-owned provider of telecommunications infrastructure to the railways.
The project will be implemented in phased manner and initially it will cover 100 of the busiest stations in India before the end of 2016. The first stations are expected to come online by end of October 2015.
The internet service will be offered free initially with an aim to make the project self-sustainable in order to provide Wi-Fi to more stations and other places.
Once this project is implemented successfully it will benefit around 21 million passengers of Indian Railways. Presently, India has about 300 million people online or having internet connectivity.
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